I stumbled on this film the other day, I’m a little late to the scene sometimes… Its a film made from 80,000 video clips that were submitted to YouTube on a single day, July 24, 2010. There were 4,500 hours of footage from 192 nations to sift through and edit into a 95 minute film. This wasn’t completely spontaneous and had some direction but still captures a very personal glimpse of a day in our world.
I’m always drawn at the site of micro structures, pods and/or any type of compact-living unit. I guess you could say it’s the kid in me who always loved his club house (I took over a shed in our back yard, and turned it in to my personal headquarters). Also, a few years back, while living in Chile, I took a trip with 3 friends out to Pan De Azucar, a Natural Park where the desert meets the ocean, for what was supposed to be a 2 week camping trip. Fascinated by the sense of community formed by the “tent metropolis” we encountered and later experienced, we extended our stay to close to a month.
At the time, I couldn’t help but think that we were witnessing what ultimately all living communities and societies would end up turning in to, so when I came across French designer Pierre Stéphane DumasBubble Structures, I was brought right back to those thoughts.
Pierre wanted to create a Eco-friendly space, following a single charter:
Proximity to nature, minimum environmental impact, landscape integration, economic integration of social aspects.
He also says his “creations” are “unusual huts for unusual nights”. He explains:
Having a night under the stars or seeing the sun rise and set is not something that many people experience anymore.
A normal tent or camper van means people miss out on these things, so I designed this eccentric shelter with the aim of offering an unusual experience under the stars while keeping all the comfort of a bedroom suite. The ceiling of the bubble has the Milky Way, guests will be able to enjoy this as well as the extraordinary light variation of the sunset and sunrise.
What started off as a few tents that could be found scattered around France, has now turned in to a couple of hotels in the same country, Attrap’Rêves in Bouches-du-Rhone (near Marseille) and Sky River outside of Loir-et-Cher.
Also, if you’re looking for inspiration or a good read on microstructures, I personally recommend Micro: Very Small Buildings by Ruth Slavid. Great projects, photos and layout.
In the summer of 1968 three men and good friends, climber and surfer Yvon Chouinard, climber and skier Doug Tompkins, and champion skier Dick Dorworth, set off from California in an old van to surf, ski and climb their way down to the southern end of Argentina, where they were met by a young British climber, Chris Jones. Their goal was to climb a mountain that had been climbed only twice before: Cerro Fitz Roy.
Little did they know, this journey would not only have a tremendous impact on their own personal lives, but would also help launch a movement by inspiring (and continue to inspire to this day, like the film 180º South) many other outdoor lovers, as well as set the tone for many future expedition/adventure films and documentaries.
Mountain Of Storms was shot on a 16mm Bolex (drool Charles Bergquist) by Lito Tejada-Flores, and is narrated by Tom Donahue.
In sports car racing, there is a wonderful thing called ‘homologation’. Manufacturers hate it, car collectors love it. It means that in order to enter a car in sanctioned sports car races, it has to be based on a production model. Without going into a lengthy explanation, just appreciate the fact that it has brought the world some of it’s most prized street-legal race cars. The 300SL is undeniably one of the most iconic. In 1952, Mercedes Benz was feeling ambitious and decided they wanted to win alot of races. So they built an incredibly streamlined, lightweight, and reliable race car using some of the most exotic materials at the time – the homologated street version that was sold to the public a complete afterthought. It was then entered it into many of the most prestigious, and difficult, endurance races of the day. They succeeded, taking 1-2 victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana to name a few. Above are a few photos of the 300SL in action at the aforementioned races (the 2nd of which is the variant used in the trans-mexican rally, where the windshield had to be reinforced with wrought iron bars due to ‘buzzard collisions’). The second group of photos are of the oldest 300SL in existence, serial number zwei. It never saw any racing, rather it was used as a training car for the very capable Hermann Lang & Fritz Reiss (along with the rest of the Silver Arrows) who went on to take many checkered flags. Dragged out of the broom closet by Mercedes, it underwent an extensive 9 month restoration for it’s 60th birthday, and in celebration of the new SLS AMG. What a timeless example of German design – both in form & function.
Eurobus is a series of photographs featuring European tour bus designs by Taylor Holland, which was shot Spring of 2011, while on various bicycle commutes around Paris, France. The series was published by Matmos Press, an independent publisher based in Montreal (QC).
This book is dedicated to the anonymous designers of European tour bus graphics, who have embraced an underappreciated art space and made it their own.
The wonderful work of Berlin based, self-taught photographer Matthias Heiderich has been covered here on the blog a couple of times before, but I thought I would check up on him to see what he’s been up to and glad I did so. He’s posted a few new amazing series and pieces since then, which I just can’t seem to get enough of. Great color and great composition.
Below are more examples of some of my favorites (hard to pick), which Matthias was kind enough to let me use for this post.
This also marks the first of the Weekend Inspiration posts I’ll be doing every Friday. This week is about photography, but I’ll be covering other subjects, as well doing a couple of process posts, weekend challenges and other ideas I’m cooking up. This is an effort to hopefully get all of us here on the ISO50 community to continue to be involved, sharing, and inspired enough to want to try and learn new things.
Please feel free to post in the comments below any ideas you may have for the Weekend Inspiration posts (challenges, process posts, etc.)
In September 2010, Sculpture, an audiovisual performance duo from London comprised by electronic music producer, Dan Hayhurst, and animator, Reuben Sutherland, presented us with a flattened zoetrope on the surface of a vinyl record by the name of Rotary Signal Emitter (Dekoder Release 046).
The Victorian zoetrope, invented in 1834, was a three-dimensional object that consisted of a spinning cylinder with vertical slits through which still images appeared to move.
Sculpture’s animation requires the use of a video camera to convey its magic, but as can be seen from their videos the effort is well worth it. Just the knowledge of the latent potential contained within the vinyl surface serves to enhance the experience of the music and the spinning disc, even to the naked eye, is a hypnotic spectacle.
Sculpture’s music, is a mixture of psychedelia, hauntology and turntablism, is a perfect match for their striking visuals. Other films by the duo can be viewed on Tapebox (they’re very much worth your time).